For
much of my artistic life, my sculpture has been a response
to a long-term investigation of the transient nature
of the human figure. My starting point in the creative
process begins with simple materials such as wax, plaster
and clay and after a process of maturation is finally
formed into glass, bronze and ceramic.
Each
of these materials becomes a word in a growing vocabulary,
allowing me the possibility to express more with the
properties of the particular substance. I am seduced
anew by the tension between the advantages, and limitations
that each presents. Each one teaches me about the other
and causes a situation of cross-pollination. Each one
is a process that involves intensities of heat integral
to the final transformation of one substance giving
way to another. The intrinsic qualities of these materials
speak to the corresponding strengths, frailties, and
the innumerable mutable as well as unexpected states
of human-ness… as well as becoming a paradigm for
the cycles of nature through the symbolic transposition
of these aspects to specific materials used within each
of the art works.
My
time spent in the living libraries of North, Central,
and South America forests, amidst various indigenous
peoples has profoundly influenced my art. Much of my
work has been in direct response to my different experiences
living with the Yanomami peoples of Brazil and Venezuela,
where I filled volumes of my sketch books with all types
of plant forms. These sketches would become the nucleus
for an internal record of the many varied elements of
plant anatomy, leaf, stem, seed, stamen, blossom, thorn
that would form a lexicon of symbolic natural elements
that would infuse much of my later work.
The
close observation from nature metamorphosed into my
own vision of the natural forms much in the same way
that my dual interest in human forms has also progressed.
I became intensively focused onthe understated, little
appreciated, relationship
of humanity with the plant kingdom, which despite our
efforts to destroy it sustains our existence upon this
planet. Two emergent themes of my visual universe came
forth in the consistent portrayal of the human form
and the dynamics of organic plant forms as sharing a
common morphology. This correlation led to an almost
unconscious intermingling of both kinds of shapes in
the resultant final image or object where the somatic
knowledge of each resonates within the other in the
manifestation of hybrid forms. This work seems to come
of a compulsion to 're-bioengineer' the concept of the
human species, co-mingling the structural elements of
both but stressing plant-like sensibilities.
I
am more concerned with the intuitive process of art-making
that is fired by the emotions and fed by feelings inspired
by larger ideas. Though the type of concentrated effort
needed to evolve artistically I hope a process of homeopathic
distillation and concentration will occur, where the
essence of what is left will act upon and speak to the
viewer with a greater intensity.
Each
of these materials becomes a word in a growing vocabulary,
allowing me the possibility to express more with the
properties of the particular substance. I am seduced
anew by the tension between the advantages, and limitations
that each presents. Each one teaches me about the other
and causes a situation of cross-pollination. Each one
is a process that involves intensities of heat integral
to the final transformation of one substance giving
way to another. The intrinsic qualities of these materials
speak to the corresponding strengths, frailties, and
the innumerable mutable as well as unexpected states
of human-ness… as well as becoming a paradigm for
the cycles of nature through the symbolic transposition
of these aspects to specific materials used within each
of the art works.
The
close observation from nature metamorphosed into my
own vision of the natural forms much in the same way
that my dual interest in human forms has also progressed.
I became intensively focused onthe understated, little
appreciated, 
relationship
of humanity with the plant kingdom, which despite our
efforts to destroy it sustains our existence upon this
planet. Two emergent themes of my visual universe came
forth in the consistent portrayal of the human form
and the dynamics of organic plant forms as sharing a
common morphology. This correlation led to an almost
unconscious intermingling of both kinds of shapes in
the resultant final image or object where the somatic
knowledge of each resonates within the other in the
manifestation of hybrid forms. This work seems to come
of a compulsion to 're-bioengineer' the concept of the
human species, co-mingling the structural elements of
both but stressing plant-like sensibilities.
